Our CEO Alain Pittet talks about ‘The future of the PCO’, published by ‘Kongres Magazine’, October 2015

The successful PCO, or Professional Conference Organiser of the future will increasingly act as a consultant of its client. The traditional, more logistical services will become a commodity every client expects and which in my opinion in the future will not be the differentiator between real PCOs.

Unfortunately a lot of companies call themselves PCO, even if their core business is definitively not professional congress organisation, but a more partial delivery of logistical services around a conference.

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This is why Associations should choose their Core PCO and consultants among the members of IAPCO (International Association of Professional Congress Organisers). IAPCO members have to gain their yearly quality stamp through continuous education and stringent admission procedures.

The real PCO of the future will consult its clients on a medium and long term basis providing strategic business planning, brand development, fundraising, compliance consulting and will develop and implement a comprehensive, tailor-made activity plan for two to three years.

The consulting services can be combined with other association management or conference planning services to provide an integrated solution for any organisation. Obviously this is not possible for those clients who opt for a yearly rotation of the event organiser, where the working relationship needs to be re-established and a lot of time has to be invested to transfer the knowledge about the vision of the organisation and the goals and objectives of its event. Considering the consultative approach the future Core PCO has to adopt, only a long-term partnership can create continuity, understanding of the needs of the different stakeholders and supporters and help to gain a lot of efficiencies. All associations, also very big ones with an in-house conference team, can profit from the experience and multi branch know-how of a PCO and should therefore plan regular external business plan reviews and consider a medium- or long-term partnership with an agency.

The future PCO will be pleased to act as core PCO, but also to deliver only part services on a long-term basis i.e. as a core housing agency, a core delegates’ relationship agency and so on.

The vision of a PCO should be to achieve memorable conferences, host happy participants and, if the Core PCO delivers also strategic Association Management services, to increase membership engagement.

What does that mean?
PCOs have to use their years of experience and lead their clients to the understanding that today the quality of a congress is not assessed purely with its content. There is a considerably increasing importance of the overall delegate’s experience.

In the near future, when also participants of scientific conferences will have to pay for their trip and registration, they will choose where to go on the basis of their best overall experience in the past or of the best image transmitted by the different communication channels.

In my opinion, memorable congresses have networking possibilities before, during and after the event, combined with online and onsite social media activities. Younger and first time participants need facilitators to come into contact with more senior delegates. Also the meeting architecture and the format of the different sessions influence the participants’ experience. Do they have possibilities to actively participate in sessions, or is the programme based just on lectures, on one-way communication? Our clients have to understand that their conference is a product with a brand. And a brand needs a branding development strategy, which a good PCO is able to provide.

More seriously, I think the perfect PCO has a very consultative approach and enthusiastic, motivated, multilingual and multicultural staff who care about the client.
This leads to a 365/24 service-oriented working attitude, 100% commitment and dedication to details. The perfect PCO achieves the client’s targets in an effective and efficient way and always delivers what he promises. And finally, creative individual solutions should exceed the expectations of the client.

Alain Pittet has been working for 22 years in the Events Industry. Before joining Congrex Switzerland as Managing Director in August 2009 he worked for 16 years at the MCH Group as Director of Trade Fairs and Exhibitions and in this role was responsible for 15 trade fairs in Basel and Zurich. Alain is married to an Italian and has two adult sons. He speaks German, English, French, Italian, understands Sardinian and a bit of Spanish, likes red wine, Italian and Thai food, smokes cigars and is very active on social media.

About Kongres Magazine:

KONGRES is the leading meetings industry magazine in New Europe. For the last 9 years Kongres has helped strongly position the region on the European and global meetings industry map.Kongres Magazine is member of IMRN – International Meetings Review.

Kongres is regularly read by 53.200 meeting planners and other industry players from across Europe

Freely distributed to the addresses of international corporate, association and governmental meetings organisers

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